


Two Men Outside The Recruiters Office

by Certifiable_Clinical_Bugnuts



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Crossover, Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 07:05:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7424848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Certifiable_Clinical_Bugnuts/pseuds/Certifiable_Clinical_Bugnuts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A conflicted Clark Kent interviews volunteers as the United States enters the second world war and meets a sickly young man willing to fight for his ideals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Men Outside The Recruiters Office

March, 1942, Manhattan

“I’m going to kick those Jap’s right in their buck toothed mouths is why I’m here,” declared the squared jawed, all american man standing outside the recruiters office. He stood defiantly, hands shoved into his jacket pockets to shield against the more nippy than usual weather, as Clark Kent jotted down his response on a cheap note pad with a number two pencil barely more than a nub in length.

Mister Tom Wachowski’s short, bravado laden response could be the summary of every response he’d gotten that morning, interviewing hopeful serviceman after hopeful serviceman, with varying degrees of anger and spit in their voices and a liberal sprinkling of epithets. The country was on fire with righteous fury since December. At least that’s what Kent’s editor, George Taylor called it. All too often it looked liked blind fury to the reporter. 

Clark snapped his notebook closed and slid his pencil into the ring bindings, giving him a smile and tipping his hat to Mister Wachowski. “Thank you for your statement, sir, and I wish you the best on the front.”

He walked away, muling his own words over in his head. He had spoken like it was an inevitability that the man, the young man, barely eighteen by his reckoning, he’d just spoken to would be accepted into the military. Of course he would be, they were taking just about anyone and everyone and slapping them into a uniform. America couldn’t afford to be picky, engaged now in the Pacific and European theatres. 

Clark balled a fist tight enough for his nails to sting his palm. He could end it, he was sure of it. Everything he could do, all his gifts. Why send an army when you could send a Superman? Tank armor was nothing to his fists, bullets like a stiff breeze on his skin. Why even bother with the armies? The conscripted and brainwashed and desperate living under the heel of cruel dictators? He could go after the men in charge themselves, drag them out of their palaces and high towers, kicking and screaming. He could end the war in one swoop! 

The steel wire tension in his arm went slack. And what good would that do? Would he stay in Japan and Germany and everywhere else that seemed to have gone mad, shaping the country to his will of how they should be? Just shove them into little bottles? He could. Clark knew he could, at one low cost: his soul. So he stayed here, bringing the news to the country, fighting the good fight on American shores while so many others less capable than him went off to fight and die so he could hold onto his principles another day longer. 

Shoving his hands into his pants pockets, Kent marched down the street, shoulder slumped - he could hear his mother chiding him now - consumed in his own dark thoughts. So much so that he almost missed a bizarre sight. Standing in line, bunched over in a ratty coat that would have been two sizes too big for Clark, let alone the pathetic figure. At first Clark thought ‘boy’, he was so small, so scrawny and his eyes so large, but no, he was no boy. His face was drawn and eyes sunk. He had a tremble in his left arm that he couldn’t hide and there was a rattle when he inhaled that Clark sure as hell didn’t near super-hearing to hear.

Catching himself staring, he reached out and gently touched him on the shoulder. “Sir, I’m Clark Kent, with the Daily Planet, would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

The sickly young man turned to his side, eyeing Kent, more than a head and a half taller than himself, with reasonable trepidation. A couple strands of thin straw yellow hair chose that moment to escape from under the floppy hat he was wearing. “No, I don’t mind,” he smiled as he spoke, still clearly anxious. 

Clark got out his paper and note pad and flipped it open. “First off, what’s your name sir?”

“Steven. Steven Rogers, but just call me Steve.”

“Steve it is,” Clark scrawled down his name, in chicken scratch handwriting that would have made his teachers faint in horror. “I’d like to ask you...why are you here? Not to be cruel, sir, but I don’t think you’ll pass the physicals if you’re looking to join the army.”

Steve’s face went tight and his eyes shadowed. He let out a long sigh, steam billowing out of his nose like smoke. “Not the first person to say that. Have about four rejections on my record. But maybe this is my lucky break.” 

“But why?” Clark reiterated, tilting his head. “You’ve already been told no, why do you keep trying despite your…” Clark could have run down a list of just the visible problems but bit his tongue as that would have been rude. “Your health problems,” he settled on. “Do you want to fight that badly?”

Steve shook his head, coughed and drew a rattling breath. “I don’t want to fight. But...but what’s going on in Europe and East Asia is just…” Steve looked up at Clark, right in the eyes with a look that would have melted the lenses in his glasses. At that moment, Steve didn’t look like a five nothing anemic. No, his posture and the look in his eyes radiated the energy of a different man entirely, someone driven by a burning passion and an unshakable sense of justice. “They’re bullies, sir. The fascist in Europe and the imperialists running Japan are bullies running over everyone and everything they see just because they think they’re bigger or stronger, and when you’re an American, you don’t just stand around and let those kinds of people have their way. You’re supposed to stand up against them!”

With that, Steve doubled over, coughing violently into his hands. The men behind and infront of him tried to scoot away, with little success as tightly as the line was packed. Clark leaned forward and gently, very, very gently, slapped him on the back. Steve took a few wheezing breaths before standing back up, staring at the film of mucus he’d hacked up into his palm before producing a stained white cloth from a pocket and cleaning his hand as best he could.

“Sorry, Mr. Kent, it’s the cold,” He said, looking away from Clark. 

Clark shook his head and replied, “You’re fine, and please just call me Clark, there’s no need to be so formal, Steve.” 

The Kansan regarded Steve very seriously, making the younger man shrink a little, an anxious blush tinting his too pale cheeks. Adjusting his glasses, Clark spoke again. “Steve, what I’m about to say, I mean. The world needs more people like you, Steve, now more than ever, people willing to stand up for the little guy even if it means looking down the barrel of a gun. You might not ever be able to get into the army-” at that Steve looked down and started scratching his index finger with his thumb, “But even then, that doesn’t mean you won’t be fighting. This right here,” Clark tapped his note pad. “Your words are going to be printed in the Daily Planet and reach countless people, and hopefully will remind America not just that we should fight, but WHY we need to fight.”

Steve blushed again and gave a meek smile. “I-I doubt it’ll do that, but if you think it might help…”

“I for one do think your words matter, Steve,” Clark said, tipping his hat to him. “I think you matter, and your courage and conviction matter.” He placed a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I believe that people like you can change the world for the better.”

“Hey, pally,” grunted a big bruiser looming behind Steve growled, gesturing toward the line ahead of them that had started moving. “Mind moving up, some of us have got Nazi’s to kill.” 

Steve coughed once more, and nodded at Clark. “I, I think he’s got a point. Thank you, Mr. Kent, what you said meant a lot to me.” With that, the brave young man, perhaps a better one than most, quickly moved to catch up to a line that was rapidly being gobbled up by the recruitment office. 

Clark waved good-bye and said, “Please, just Clark. And best of luck, Steve! Best of luck.”

He exhaled, flipped his note pad closed and stuck it back in his pocket. Deciding he wasn’t going to get anything better than what that sickly young man had said, Clark walked away, back straight, hands to his side. That young man, for all his physical problems, was still willing to put himself in danger. To risk life and limb for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. Plans started to form in Clark’s mind. He might not be able to end the war, but he could sure as hell tip the odds in the favor of the side of truth and justice.


End file.
